Lens on lifeTeens turn cameras on their communities for the San Diego Latino Film Festival

By Gil Griffin STAFF WRITER

March 12, 2004

Nic Paget-Clarke / Media Arts Center San Diego

Mariluz Sanchez never knew the harrowing details of her father's struggle of crossing the border from Mexico to the United States to support her family – until she documented it on film.

Blanca Romero was outraged by escalating housing prices that caused many longtime Sherman Heights residents to move to other neighborhoods. Instead of getting mad, she started filming.

And Oscar Lita, a fan of action movies, suddenly found himself in the editing room, producing a story of how people in Vista helped rural Mexicans who desperately needed emergency medical support.

Before they participated last year, along with 200 other youths, in Media Arts Center San Diego's Teen Producers Project, none of the three moviemaking neophytes had ever operated a sophisticated video camera. Now they're documentary filmmakers.

Their works – part of their self-produced series, "Tu Voz TV" ("Your Voice TV") – will be screened Wednesday at Madstone Hazard Theaters in Mission Valley as part of the annual San Diego Latino Film Festival. The 10-day showcase, which began yesterday, is the biggest Latino cultural event in the region and is the city's largest film festival.

"It was a great opportunity to teach other people about what's going on in our community," said Romero, an 18-year-old senior at Mission Bay High School, who directed "Donde Yo Vivi" ("Where I Lived"), with her 16-year-old sister, Stephanie. The film is a 10-minute look at the affordable housing shortage in Sherman Heights.

"Gentrification is not right for the people living there," Romero continued. "The neighborhood used to have drugs and gangs and prostitution, and the residents came together to clean it up. I'm not sure the film will make a radical change, but it will help a lot of people become more aware of the issues."

That's the goal of Media Arts Center San Diego, which sponsors the San Diego Latino Film Festival. The nonprofit Media Arts Center recruits its teen producers from schools, community centers and low-income housing developments. The Teen Producers Project is funded by various state, county and city agencies.

"These videos represent the lives of many youth that we don't hear much of in mainstream media," said Ethan van Thillo, Media Arts Center San Diego's executive director.

"They're expressing the realities of their communities. They haven't participated in video production before, and (now they're) learning how to write and communicate in their second language. Giving them the camera gives them the power to express themselves about issues affecting their lives."

Mariluz, a 17-year-old senior at Orange Glen High School in Escondido, addressed the adverse conditions migrant workers face in her film, "En El Tercero Espacio" ("In the Third Space"). It retells the story of her father, Javier, who as an undocumented immigrant journeyed from the Mexican state of Queretaro to work in the fields of Central California to support his family.

In the film, Javier Sánchez talks about his harrowing journey, during which he slept in fields, irrigation ditches or wherever he could, when he found work. Once a year, he returned to see his wife and children, who remained in Mexico.

"I didn't even know a lot of things my father went through," said Sanchez, who at 7 crossed the border as an undocumented immigrant with her two older sisters to join the rest of her family. Shortly afterward, her family gained permanent resident status.

"I didn't know all the things he did to help us get a better education. The film is something we can show to make people understand that we don't come here to take away jobs. We come here to work and have a better life."

Mariluz teamed with her 18-year-old sister, Purificación, in making that film and another, "Un Soldado Mexicano" ("A Mexican Soldier"). "Soldado" recounts the life of the late Jesus Suárez, a 20-year-old, Mexican-born Marine who lived in Escondido. A year ago, he was killed while serving in Iraq. Mariluz conducted extensive interviews with Suárez's father, Fernando, who opposed the war but supported his son's wishes to fight.

Lita, an 18-year-old student at Alta Vista High School in Vista, is also a child of migrant workers. His project chronicles the Vista Fire Department's donation of an ambulance last year to a community in the Mexican state of Puebla. Lita interviewed Vista Mayor Morris Vance and Mario Balcazar, a Vista resident who led the grass-roots petition to secure the rescue vehicle. The film won an Estrella ("Star") Award from the County Office of Education's Migrant Education Program.

"I've always liked the movies and was curious about making them," Lita said. "I also heard that the film might be shown to the people of Puebla who got the ambulance. I'm excited about this one showing at the festival. I just never thought it would get this far."

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San Diego Latino Film Festival

The San Diego Latino Film Festival runs through March 21 and will present more than 100 feature, documentary and short films from Mexico, Latin America, Spain and the United States. "Tu Voz TV," two 30-minute documentary compilations, written, produced and directed by teenage filmmakers, screens at the Madstone Theaters, Mission Valley, 7510 Hazard Center Drive, San Diego, Wednesday, 10 a.m. and